We Will All Rise from the Dust
by aletheakatherine
Summary: Jakku is a barren, ugly, naked planet; but it is honest. The rest of the universe, however, is not. *some liberties taken...may not exactly follow Star Wars canon*
**Author's Note:** So...this is an experiment, and I honestly don't know if I'll continue (that depends on if anybody wants me to, haha). I haven't written fanfiction in forever (the other works I've posted so far are from several years back, works that I wanted to put out there just for the hell of it) so I'm probably somewhat rusty. I guess I'm kind of (really) curious if my writing has matured much in that time span - and curious if this is any good. Anyhow, happy reading! Please don't step in the quicksand, I hear it's bad for your health...if you need any help getting around Jakku safely, I know this one girl named Rey who's a really good tour guide *wink wink*

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She was never meant to be the hero of the galaxy. Not the scavenger, the girl with sand in her eyes and her heartbeat at her throat, the girl who satisfied her hunger with crumbling rations of bread paid for with meager bits of sun-dried metal. Not the girl who shielded her eyes every time she stared into the sun, whose hands were always hidden beneath layers of woolen cloth, whose secrets were always hidden behind a mask. She was nothing - _is_ nothing - nothing but a single lonely orphan on Jakku struggling to make a life for herself, struggling to make a living, struggling for a bite to eat and a shack to keep her hidden. _Jakku._ She loves this place - of course she does - every bit of it; it's her home, no matter how barren, no matter how unforgiving, no matter how desolate. This wasteland of golden sand and rolling dunes and vanishing mires - this is where she belongs, where she has always belonged, where she _will_ always belong. She loves it even now, even after years of traveling the myriad space lanes of the galaxy, past every single beautiful planet there ever was; after years spent in luscious forests and sawtoothed, downy-snowed mountains and cities bustling with life and color.

She never realized it before, but she loves Jakku because it is honest. _Honest._ Brutally so; but then, its brutality is a necessary component of its totality. Standing here with Finn, staring across to the lot where she first climbed aboard the Millennium Falcon ( _that kriffing YT-1300,_ Poe Dameron liked to say, _the Corellians and their old, dinged-up excuses for ships_ ) with the sand flying up around her boots and the explosions shuddering through the ground into the air...she's _nostalgic_. And Rey Skywalker is not a sentimental person. But all of this, all of this serenity, and peace, and stillness, reminds her of all she loved about Jakku, all she misses, all she's left behind.

The air. She misses the air. The way it's thin, and hot, and practically crackles on her skin, burning like hot iron, simmering and rippling in the dimming rays of the dusky sun. That's the first part of Jakku's honesty - the air can't hide secrets, isn't _capable_ of hiding secrets. The secrets it keeps are secrets publicly known. Some of the tropical planets - the balmy ones, the ones that go along with crystal clear waters and eternally perfect weather - they have this atmosphere that's thick and warm and comforting, like a lullaby, like a baby in a mother's womb; and she hates them, hates them through and through, because they have this ability to keep things from her. ...well, no, not quite; nothing, nobody can keep things from her, not easily. But they _try_. And that's enough to make her skin crawl.

And the landscape. Jakku isn't a traditionally beautiful planet - it may be cloaked in gold, but that gold is crumbly and dusty and irritable, the kind of gold that rises up in waves and settles on everything like a layer of memories that won't go away. But when she turns in a circle, it's all naked - bare, vulnerable, unclothed, no trees or greenery to conceal the true skin of the planet. The rock and the dust and the sand - that's all there is. Everything is on the surface. No secrets. The dust tries to hide things, sometimes, but it's just dust. Take a finger and wipe it away. Blow the rocks clear.

So yes, Jakku is very, _very_ bad at keeping secrets.

And yet it kept _her_ for so long - for years - kept her, the biggest secret of all, hidden in a tiny sector of the galaxy where no one would think to look; one of the most powerful promises this universe has to offer, tucked away in a niche in a desert of sand and wasteland, eating rations for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (if she was _lucky_ ). Reduced to trading old scavenged tidbits of metal for her daily sustenance. Shameful.

That's what Finn says, anyway. Rey just laughs. She's happy with her lot in life. She has few friends, but good ones; little comforts, but precious ones; dangerous adventures, but worthwhile ones. It's worth it. All of it.

"I'm not going to pretend to know, because I don't," Poe says from next to her, helmet cradled in the baby's bed of his arms. "This place? Jakku? It's a hellhole." He hesitates for a moment, grins cheekily at the disbelieving snort she gives him. "I only stayed here for a bit, but that was obvious right off. No one would want to live here." He rolls his helmet into the crook of his right elbow, uses the other hand to brace himself as he kneels down into the sand, boots digging ruts into the soil. "But the people here - they're beautiful. Not as great as you, but I can see now - I saw then - how a place like this could produce a girl like you. The people...you all know how to pick up the scraps of your life and get on with it. You have this instinct to _survive_. You take this desert and make it into a home. You take your misfortunes and make them into possibilities. You take your curses and make them godsends."

"Seeing things upside down all the time," Rey quips. "It's a talent."

"It is," Poe says, glancing at her - serious, for once. "Being able to see all of the ways you can take the threat of extinction and make it an opportunity to thrive. To show the world. That's something most people don't have, something most people on most planets don't have. I wish I had it."

"You do."

"Not really." He grins again, that same grin that splits his face in two and carves dimples into his cheeks, the same grin that makes his eyes squint in smile and his voice warm with the low rumble of laughter. "I may be a _damn_ good pilot - I could outrace you any day, Jedi girl, and you know it - but being good at the Kessel Run doesn't make me good the way you're good, the way Jakku is good, eh?" He gives her a little nudge - just enough to tip her slightly off balance, just enough to make her wrinkle her nose in mock annoyance as she sways next to him.

"I could beat you at the Run," she says, sticking her nose up defiantly.

"Could you?" He takes a swig of his water canteen, bored.

"Yes." She can't quite hold back the way her voice brightens, gains a hard edge - so hard, so tense it trembles, even though she fights it. "I could. And I'll show you I can, if you want." She gives him a smile - a proud smile, the kind that reaches her eyes and makes her cheeks blush red. "I'll show you I can do it in half the time you can."

He raises his eyebrows.

"Rey," says Finn, from somewhere behind her. "Rey, you and Poe need to come here and look at something. We're receiving a signal - a message from Luke."

"Master Skywalker," she says irritably, turning away from Poe, trudging through the sand towards the silhouette of the ship. "It's Master Skywalker to you - to us. He's the greatest Jedi knight that ever lived, Finn!"

"Right, Master Skywalker," Finn agrees. "But it's encoded."

She looks up, squinting. "What is?"

"The signal." He gestures. "We don't know what it is, but Leia -"

Rey stops short. Something's wrong. She can feel it in the air - in the way the atmosphere seems to ripple and shudder uneasily, as if quaking in the face of a monster. And the way her heart drops into her stomach, throat closing with worry -

 _The Force._

" _Luke!_ " she cries - and this time, no one corrects her.


End file.
